Absolute Calibration Strategies for the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array and Their Impact on the 21 cm Power Spectrum

NS Kern; JS Dillon; AR Parsons; CL Carilli; G Bernardi; Z Abdurashidova; JE Aguirre; P Alexander; ZS Ali; Y Balfour; AP Beardsley; TS Billings; JD Bowman; RF Bradley; P Bull; J Burba; S Carey; C Cheng; DR Deboer; M Dexter; E De Lera Acedo; J Ely; A Ewall-Wice; N Fagnoni; R Fritz; SR Furlanetto; K Gale-Sides; B Glendenning; D Gorthi; B Greig; J Grobbelaar; Z Halday; BJ Hazelton; JN Hewitt; J Hickish; DC Jacobs; A Julius; J Kerrigan; P Kittiwisit; SA Kohn; M Kolopanis; A Lanman; P La Plante; T Lekalake; A Liu; D Macmahon; L Malan; C Malgas; M Maree; ZE Martinot; E Matsetela; A Mesinger; M Molewa; MF Morales; T Mosiane; SG Murray; AR Neben; B Nikolic; CD Nunhokee; N Patra; S Pieterse; JC Pober; N Razavi-Ghods; J Ringuette; J Robnett; K Rosie; P Sims; C Smith; A Syce; N Thyagarajan; PKG Williams; H Zheng

Journal article

Absolute Calibration Strategies for the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array and Their Impact on the 21 cm Power Spectrum

NS Kern, JS Dillon, AR Parsons, CL Carilli, G Bernardi, Z Abdurashidova, JE Aguirre, P Alexander, ZS Ali, Y Balfour, AP Beardsley, TS Billings, JD Bowman, RF Bradley, P Bull, J Burba, S Carey, C Cheng, DR Deboer, M Dexter Show all

Astrophysical Journal | The American Astronomical Society | Published : 2020

DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab67bc

Abstract

We discuss absolute calibration strategies for Phase I of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), which aims to measure the cosmological 21 cm signal from the Epoch of Reionization. HERA is a drift-scan array with a 10° wide field of view, meaning bright, well-characterized point-source transits are scarce. This, combined with HERA's redundant sampling of the uv plane and the modest angular resolution of the Phase I instrument, make traditional sky-based and self-calibration techniques difficult to implement with high dynamic range. Nonetheless, in this work, we demonstrate calibration for HERA using point-source catalogs and electromagnetic simulations of its primary beam. We show ..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Bradley Greig Author

Related Projects (1)

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR ALL SKY ASTROPHYSICS IN 3D (ASTRO 3D)

Grants

Awarded by National Science Foundation

Funding Acknowledgements

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant Nos. 1636646 and 1836019 and institutional support from the HERA collaboration partners. This research is funded in part by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. HERA is hosted by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory, which is a facility of the National Research Foundation, an agency of the Department of Science and Innovation. J.S.D. gratefully acknowledges the support of the NSF AAPF award No. 1701536. A.L. acknowledges support from a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grant and a Discovery Launch Supplement, as well as the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Azrieli Global Scholars program. Parts of this research were supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in three-Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) through project No. CE170100013. G.B. acknowledges funding from the INAF PRIN-SKA 2017 project 1.05.01.88.04 (FORE-CaST), support from the Ministero degli Affari Esteri della Cooperazione Internazionale-Direzione Generale per la Promozione del Sistema Paese Progetto di Grande Rilevanza ZA18GR02 and the National Research Foundation of South Africa (grant No. 113121) as part of the ISARP RADIO-SKY2020 Joint Research Scheme, from the Royal Society and the Newton Fund under grant NA150184, and from the National Research Foundation of South Africa (grant No. 103424).